Performance appraisal softwares

Friday, September 26, 2008

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Evaluating employee performance requires a systematic approach and a streamlined process. With the advent of technology, performance appraisal softwares are becoming common in organizations, helping integrate organisational goal

Evaluating employee performance requires a systematic approach and a streamlined process. With the advent of technology, performance appraisal softwares are becoming common in organisations.

There is a school of thought that considers performance appraisal software as a de-humanising factor. It has also been negated and blamed for decreasing the inter-personal communication between the supervisor and the subordinate. However, in actual circumstances, it has remarkably improved the evaluation process and the clear picture provided by it has enhanced the involvement of both appraiser and appraisee.

The performance appraisal softwares are used to :

Integrate organisational goal and competency management

Professional and career development strategy

Employee evaluation form

Automated performance management workflow

E-mail reminders

Report generation and compatibility with the HR system and softwares

Performance appraisal software mechanises the appraisal process. In addition to this, it evaluates its employees based on their merit. It is required to streamline the work flow and is a part of Best Practices implementation in various organisations. The features of the performance appraisal software are:

It is beneficial in terms of cost and time parameter and considerably reduces the efforts put in the appraisal process.

It clearly defines the goal of the organisation and also the expected performance level from the employees.

It eases the process of tracking the progress of the employees.

It is judged as a ‘fair system’ which gives a fair review of the employees and in turn reduces the factors such as favouritism and the evaluation process treats everyone at par.

It also streamlines and fastens the feedback process. The employee benefits by getting timely feedback and gets adequate time to improve and better the performance.

An important decision that an organisation is required to take is: Whether to build the software in-house or buy it from a vendor? In-house software might not be as useful as the cost and resources required to develop it is high. It might not contain the up-to-date features that the vendors can provide easily. Some of the preferred companies for obtaining performance appraisal system are: Halogen Software, SuccessFactors, Applied Training Systems, Promantek, eXplorance etc. The points that should be considered while buying the software are:

Cost consideration: The cost of the software should involve factors like: immediate buying cost, customisation involved, security consideration, cost of training the new users and updates, if any in the future.

Vendor evaluation: Do a complete check of the buyer in terms of the price being offered, the time consideration and how compatible the new product will be with the internal system.

Features being offered: The software features should also be given prime importance. It should give the users option to conduct different types of evaluation. In addition to this, it should be a secure system providing different user interfaces. It should allow the users to add new options as per the organisational requirements in future.

Organisational requirement: The focus of the software should be depending on the industry for which it is implemented. For e.g. - A performance appraisal system for an automobile industry would be different from the one that can be used for the IT sector as the knowledge and the competency requirements from employees would be entirely different.

Training requirement: The time and effort required in training the employees to use the system effectively.

Thus, performance appraisal software is widely accepted by both employees and employers. The organisation, after proper training and guidance, can implement performance appraisal software to smoothen, fasten and reorganise the appraisal process.

And this isn't about changing your language, your vocabulary, or your proficiency with words. It is more about changing the outlook, and the messages delivered thereof. And professionally it does make a lot of difference.
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